Donald Trump Jr has amnesia and it isn’t helping his father

Donald Trump Jr has such severe amnesia, he can’t remember who he was on the phone with during one of the most fateful phone calls of his life, and he can’t remember if he ever had a treasonous conversation with his father. Junior wants us to believe he has severe amnesia, if today’s newly released Senate testimony transcript is any indication. He’s clearly trying to shield his father from suspicion and prosecution in the Trump-Russia scandal. But because he’s being stupid about it, he’s not helping his father one bit. Nor is he helping himself.

Trump Jr told Senate investigators that when he had an eleven minute phone call just before his Trump Tower meeting with representatives of the Russian government, he can’t remember who the phone call was with. Junior would have been better off just admitting the obvious, which is that he was on the phone with his father.

Junior could have tried to claim the call was coincidental and that the meeting wasn’t discussed, and it might have been difficult for anyone to prove otherwise. Instead, by refusing to admit this, he’s only serving to make the phone call look more suspicious. It gets worse.

Donald Trump Jr also told the Senate that he couldn’t recall if he had ever discussed his Russia meeting with Donald Trump. Really? Come on. No one believes that. And again, by refusing to simply say that they never discussed it, Junior is tacitly admitting that they did discuss it. He appears to be worried about getting caught committing perjury, which means he thinks evidence of their conversation will surface. In other words, Junior has told us where to start digging next.